Noelia Martínez Castellanos

The meeting will held workshops that will show how to access existing resources, overcome the language barrier and find more useful information about Scottish culture. The event will include several organizations such as ESOL Education Scotland and the digital magazine Cosmopolita Scotland. All activities will be bilingual. This event will be a perfect place to establish contacts and get to know the possibilities that Scottish society offers to the Spanish speaking community.

Since the start of the financial crisis in 2008, the number of Spanish immigrants in Scotland has increased dramatically. Only in Edinburgh there are around 20,000 residents according to estimates mentioned in the documentary In a Foreign Land (2014). In recent years, several local organizations as the Adult Learning Project (ALP) or the Edinburgh and Lothians Regional Equality council, have warned of certain shortcomings and defects in the social, occupational and language integration in the Spanish community who has recently arrived to Scotland.

In this context, the ALP supported the creation of El Puentein 2012 a consulting free service for Spanish immigrants whose purpose was to find out the needs of this group, identifying the opportunities that could create thanks to the coexistence as well as to define the necessary tools for integration. ALP also supported the sociological research conducted by El Puente The New Spanish Community in Edinburgh, Situation and Needs, a study that highlighted the vulnerability of the new Spanish community in Edinburgh.

ELREC has supported the creation of Point of Information in Spanish (PIE), an organization that “deals with the care, support and advice to all those hard-working people, Spanish-speaking migrants resident in Scotland” from September of 2014.

People Know How is an innovative social organization whose mission is to help people, especially children and young people, in the discovery of their potential and abilities. For more information about the event and the organization you can visit the web site of People Know How or follow them on Facebook and Twitter.